S.F. Civil Rights Ordinance should be reworked

ON CIVIL LIBERTIES

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, March 24, 2012

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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Mayor Ed Lee holding the first in a series of town hall city budget meetings at Tenderloin Community School, in San Francisco, Calif., with supervisor Jane Kim on Wednesday, March 16, 2011. The city is facing a $380 million deficit. less

Mayor Ed Lee holding the first in a series of town hall city budget meetings at Tenderloin Community School, in San Francisco, Calif., with supervisor Jane Kim on Wednesday, March 16, 2011. The city is facing ... more

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

S.F. Civil Rights Ordinance should be reworked

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Supervisor Jane Kim put off a final vote on her Safe San Francisco Civil Rights Ordinance until next week. This gives the Board of Supervisors, which passed the bill 6-5 in its first reading, time to improve, or even scrap, the measure.

Kim wrote the measure in response to the Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian (AMEMSA) community's concerns about San Francisco police engaging in intelligence gathering with federal agents in a Joint Terrorism Task Force. Board President David Chiu, who supported the measure, explained, "We know after 9/11 that we have Muslim, Arab and South Asian brothers and sisters who are being surveilled by the FBI for no other reason than because of what they look like or what communities they're from."

The Human Rights Commission held a hearing in September 2010 that solicited testimony from residents who believe they have been the victims of racial profiling, harassment or intrusive law-enforcement actions. It later issued a report that failed to document any recent instances of local or federal law enforcement overreach. Some antiwar protesters complained that they were arrested at antiwar rallies, but the report failed to determine whether they had broken any laws or whether the arresting officers had any affiliation with federal agents.

Many of the report's findings - that AMEMSA students face harassment in schools and Muslim women are afraid to wear the hijab - have nothing to do with the FBI or SFPD.

Kim and civil-rights attorneys have been critical of a memorandum of understanding that the FBI and SFPD quietly entered into in 2007. SFPD brass tried to address these concerns by issuing an order that stipulated that police work with the task force "only on investigations of suspected terrorism that have a criminal nexus."

Police Chief Greg Suhr fears the FBI will not renew the task force if it has to hand over sensitive information to the Police Commission. The progressive SFPD will have less input into FBI probes. How does that advance civil liberties?